I hate January.

It is a cold, boring month especially since there is practically no snow in the valley. And with all those economical problems and with a general depression among people….

But I had some beautiful creative moments in the last days of December. It was extremely inspiring to work in the cold kitchen early in the morning, double dressed with a foaming coffee in my hands, especially after a hot and passionate Madagascar experience in November.

In those solitary moments the tender “quail breast with a rhubarb & strawberry juice, glazed swedes and its puree’, crispy beetroot and foie gras emulsion” was created and a fantastic “Black barley and white black cod fish with oysters, bacon, chicory oil, foamed potato and pink garlic drops”. The brutal wind outside inspired also “A story of baked apple and walnuts” with crispy rose meringue, soup of green tea and white chocolate and hibiscus jelly and THE ONE that I dedicated to my beautiful Madagascar: burnt banana slice with long pepper, crudité’ of langoustine, duck foie, green pistacchio sponge and fermented red cabbage. Marko K hated it, saying that banana looks so trendy, but he was not the one who just got back from warm and exciting tropics with all those fruits around!

Did you know that in a little village about 50 km out of Antananarivo they have an important duck foie gras production: in the middle of a poor nowhere there are signs as “Maison de foie gras”, “La premiere production de foie gras au Madagascar”…. and you would not belive it: just a bit more serious menu in the restaurants throughout Madagascar propose dishes based on foie gras.

Beautiful memories: for lunch I only had some garden chicory dressed with warm potato: back to a poor mountain reality.

On Sunday, January 6 we closed the restaurant in Hiša Franko until Easter. It was time we started thinking seasonally on our work. We will be very active out of the house, I will also try to dedicate a lot of my time in our castle restaurant in Ljubljana. We have some great projects over there regarding basic & poor ingredients of Slovenian traditional cuisine.